Five minutes with Dan Grogan

Dan Grogan, Partner and Managing Director, Global Event Partners talks to InBusiness.ae about the Energy Digitalisation Summit that was recently held in Dubai.

Tell us how technology is disrupting the oil and gas industry.

With an oil price that is now stable, but certainly not what was and no sign of the $110 a barrel high anywhere on the horizon for good many years, the landscape has changed with a remit of “doing more with less” as the must going forward. This has coincided with a spike in technology growth and ability, offering more sophisticated IoT platforms, data analytics and capture, storage and processes that deliver agile, informed decision making in real time, pushing process and productivity to meet extremely high demands.

How are businesses in the energy sector coping with this digital transformation?

In some cases slowly, in others, you have to take up with prospects in the billions. Main findings from the speakers and lengthy Q&A sessions at EDS Middle East, tell us companies are more than willing to adopt digital transformation, with a great desire and need to implement new IoT technology and data analytics processes. However, the key requirement is a holistic strategy rather than key areas gaining from one implementation, then adding new systems piece by piece. Full system integration is, of course, vast and mapping the best strategy seems to be the greatest hurdle in terms of quick decision-making and implementation.

What are the key challenges and changes that experts at the Energy Digitalisation Summit Middle East were mainly concerned about?

Again, the main issues that seem to be repeated are the need for strategy and understating of how different suppliers can integrate and build the best overall solution. A one stop shop or key supplier being able to give a full service solution is being challenged with so many elements that can benefit from the vast choices of new and disruptive technology on offer. With data analytics specifically, gaining the data isn’t so much the problem, how to process this and through which systems is the key challenge. With many undertaking in their infancy, the main end goal does seem to offer a comprehensive challenge with so many options on the table.

Was this the maiden edition of a series of other events for EDS-ME in the region?

Yes, we currently have plans in motion for the next Energy Digitalization Summit, which will be happening in Singapore in April or May. Further dates and details will be announced soon.